Iraq

Ever since the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has served as the stage for inter-ethnic violence.  Under these conditions, governments have struggled to maintain any form of order, leading to multiple humanitarian needs.  With many people internally displaced, aid agencies have played a vital role in delivering life-saving assistance, including food, shelter, and healthcare.

Frontline surgical courses

To improve the surgical care offered to those injured in conflict, we first delivered a surgical training course to 32 surgeons in Mosul in September 2017.  Four years later, we returned, visiting the Kurdish-majority city of Erbil in our first post-pandemic mission, upskilling another 24 Iraqi surgeons.

We don’t have current plans to teach in Iraq but, as we do with all of our Middle Eastern programmes, we will continue to review the country’s needs for surgical training to determine how best to serve the Iraqi people.

“Most of the cases we see are burns, explosions causing burns. I always think of my daughter. Most of the time, I am crying with the patient.”
Dr Basma, Mosul

Iraq stories